How to Become a Social Media Manager in 2020

Hello you! I wanted to go ahead and make an article all about how to become a social media manager.

This is what I have done. I've worked both in corporate America, fortune 500, nonprofits and startups, I've also worked for the past few years as a freelancer. I love social media advertising and organic content strategy, and then I also do a lot of article production work. Article editing and article marketing are key! If you are into things like that. Keep reading!

Now don't get scared here, I'm not saying that you have to go to college as I did. I'm not to saying that this can mean a variety of different things for different people, but I will say that one of the big things that I do see when people come work with me as their coach or who leave a comment under these articles. Is that they are hungry for success. 

I have this Facebook group that took off so I became a social media manager now and that's great. I think, having that experience and having that portfolio piece which we'll talk about later is important, but it's also really important to understand business and to Understand kind of the business terms and sort of the business processes and all that kind of stuff, in addition to just knowing how to organically grow something or you know getting lucky, if you will so there truly are so many different ways that you can Get educated like I said it doesn't have to be formal education.

Necessarily now I did go to college. I went to school for film article Media Studies and political science. Those are not necessarily the majors I would choose now. If I knew what I wanted to do with social media management, I would probably look at you know marketing business communications, which my degree was in the School of Communication. So I did have a lot of writing classes and interpersonal communication public speaking things like that, which all help me but even a photo or article is really important.

I know a lot of people are like. Oh so you don't use your degree and I'm like. Are you kidding me, I film articles every single day, if not for my own YouTube blog, which is a big marketing tool for my business, but for my clients, so those are all good. Majors talk to your advisor see what they recommend. Some schools even have like digital marketing programs now so definitely check with them, but, as I said, if you have chosen to not go to college, if it's too expensive, which believe me I know I was lucky, I got a scholarship.

There are lots of other ways to learn a few resources that I always recommend number one HubSpot Academy is amazing. Please take advantage of that. I think all of the courses are free. I've taken inbound and taking a content marketing course right now. They have a ton of really good courses that are free like I said, I think that they all are free. I'm going to list that down below there's also another free course that facebook offers called the Facebook blueprint, and that is, of course that teaches you how to use Facebook Ads and then, of course I do have some resources as well.

There are lots of courses out there. Those are just a couple that I recommend, but do your research, you know, use skills, share, use, and all of those things use YouTube. You're doing the right thing right now by researching. But learn even after you go to college, even after you think that you know everything in this industry. Guess what it is constantly changing, so that is like my biggest tip, is to always be on top of learning step number two you're going to need to build a portfolio, so this can be difficult if you didn't go to school, for social Media which not a lot of people do it can be difficult.

If you don't have an internship, it can be difficult if you're kind of starting from nothing so number one like I talked about. Maybe you did have an Instagram account that kind of blew up or a Facebook group that you managed, or maybe you have a podcast on the side or something that you can kind of share as an example of the work that you do and that you can make your pet project and build it up and show some success with that.

You know that can be one example or one thing that you put into your portfolio. Another thing you can do is take portfolio projects, so portfolio projects is a fancy way of saying a free or low-cost project for a friend or family, friends, and family discount. Essentially, that's what a lot of people do to get started. You know if you have a friend who has a business, if your aunts, I don't know, needs help with her LinkedIn page or something like offer your services at a discounted rate or for free.

I know that a lot of marketers and people and the internet are very against doing free work, but honestly, I think that it's just kind of like an internship, you know, so I do portfolio projects here and there, especially when I'm trying to break Into a new kind of niche or a new type of industry, or try something new with my content, I might do like one thing. That'S my key and I have a podcast episode all about this, so I'll link that down below as well.

But the key is not to be like oh I'll, do your social media for a year to build my portfolio, no no say I'll! Do 10 photos or I'll write, 10 captions for you or I'll. You know cover one event for you or something like that. I'll plan out one content calendar for you, don't make it like this ongoing thing where you're always working for free. I think that's. The key number three is market yourself, so whether you want to work in the house somewhere, meaning you want to get a job in social media management or you want to start your own business you're going to need to market yourself.

That'S just the world that we live in nowadays, personal branding is everything so if you're going, the more traditional job route make sure that your LinkedIn is updated. Linkedin is social media and I think that it's kind of a great portfolio type work. It's a great example of who you are and if you can get good engagement on your LinkedIn posts and your LinkedIn profile is put together and nice.

You probably know something about social media, so definitely make sure that that is all up-to-date. Let me know in the comments down below if you'd like me, to do a full episode on LinkedIn and then the same thing, though, if you're looking to freelance or start your own business LinkedIn is huge for me and my own business as well. I kind of used to think of it as a very typical corporate type thing, but know everybody needs a LinkedIn.

If you ask me so definitely make sure that you go ahead and clean that up, but you also may want to consider a website like a portfolio website, so look into that it can be affordable to build a website using Squarespace. That'S my preferred service, but I know a lot of people swear by Wix and other website builders. It'S pretty easy nowadays and it can be a really low cost. You don't need to have 10 million pages on your first website.

I think that this is something that a lot of my clients get hung up on when again when they come to me for coaching they're like I have this kind of failure to launch because I'm afraid to launch my website, it's not ready yet listen to all That your first website needs is a little bit about you. It'S an about page, a way to contact you and some type of services page a portfolio page. You know some type of example of what you can do a little bit of insight on what you're offering that's all you need to start.

You don't need complex sales funnels and forms that all these amazing like super, high-quality pictures. Listen all that stuff can come later down the line when you're ready, when you have more time and money to invest in your business start with the basics, so about contact and a little bit about what you do. Step number four is to establish your processes. So this is everything from your pricing.

You got to determine what type of salary you're looking for if you're looking for a day job, you have to determine your hourly end or package rate if you're a freelancer. All of that, so there will be a resource link down below for freelancers. Indeed, is that the one Glassdoor class Burnett indeed Glassdoor LinkedIn has a salary estimator to a think pay scale? Those are all good ones to search for what a social media manager would make in your area or a social media coordinator play around with different roles and titles, because if your entry-level you're probably going to start as like a marketing coordinator, social media coordinator, community manager, Something like that before you get into marketing manager or social media manager, so look at those salaries, so you can get an understanding of what to ask for and what to look for.

So pricing is a part of the processes, but you'll also want to figure out like your SOP or your standard operating procedure, especially if you are a freelancer or you want to be freelancer determine you know what the process is when you get a client. How are you going to onboard them? How are you getting get them acclimated to the tools and the software that you use and how are you going to set their strategy so do research on like social media strategies, social media, onboarding, client, onboarding stuff, like that, I do have a whole section on my Signature course, which is a paid course, but it's a pretty affordable investment if you're looking to do this long term for your career.

So I do have a whole section on that in there an onboarding your clients, so ya figure all that out figure out what social media management system you're going to use. I use a tool called lonely, but there's a ton of other ones out there HootSuite and sprout social Agora pulse, so so many and most of them, if not all, of them, offer some free trial or free version of their schedulers. So you definitely if you're going to be a social media manager have to have a scheduler.

You can't just post everything organically that'll work for one or two accounts, but after a while, you're going to need to have a nice content, calendar views a nice way to communicate back and forth with your clients all that kind of stuff invoicing contracts. Again, if you are going to be freelance, you need to figure all that stuff out too. I do think I have resources on that that I'll link down below, but if not real, the quick wave is my invoicing and Co is a great place to start when it comes to contracts and then number five is to find jobs and clients.

So again, this depends on whether or not you want to work in-house, whether you want to work with clients and it can change. You know, what's changed for me when I first started. I started my career in corporate and I knew that I wanted that experience and I'm really happy with the path that I took. I'm really glad that I did have corporate experience, but I ended up going on to run my own business now.

Will I run my own business forever? I don't know, I'm really happy doing it right now and don't see myself going back today this year next year, but who knows maybe ten years down the line, I might desire a full-time office job again, so we'll see you can go back and forth. You don't have to necessarily choose right now, but there are different, obviously different processes for each one. So for me I found my first job on the Internet as all the Millennials do.

Nowadays. My first, you know full-time marketing job, but I'm going to break it to you, honestly, I'm going to tell you the truth. Social media and marketing, in general, are pretty competitive right now and I did not get a social media management job straight out of college. I took something that I knew was going to get me those desirable skills and to get me to where I needed to be long term.

So I took an entry-level job at a chat lab, so it was basically like a call center, but people chatted in with you instead and it was that I think. It'S a fortune 100, maybe if not fortune 100 fortune 500. But it's like a really good company and it was a really good experience. I knew that it was going to help me with customer service, which is a huge aspect of social media management. I knew that it was going to help grow, like my writing, skills and spelling and all that stuff also huge, and I knew that it was in the sales and marketing department of that company and that I would have the option to overtime.

Move up into a more direct marketing role, or at least have that title in that department on my resume, because my official title sounded pretty cool, I'm not going to lie, but really what I was doing is chatting with people I mean or not. But I got promoted within like four or five months, so I had a senior level role and then pretty much after I was in that senior level role for a little bit.

I started getting people reaching out to me constantly to ask me to interview for social media jobs. Now, here's the other caveat with that. Again, I'm being brutally honest with you, I had a side hustle as well, so I had this YouTube blog. I did some writing work here and there on the side, and I also started a relationship with one of my longer-term clients doing their social media and influencer marketing strategy.

So I was doing that kind of moonlighting doing some freelance social media and those things all coupled together. You know the fortune 100 company, the freelance gig, the YouTube blog. All of that experience combines got me my first entry-level social media job, adding a different fortune. 500 companies, so I just want to be honest with you. You might not get a social media manager job like straight out of college, but all of that whole process of getting my first social media job only took me nine or 10 months.

I was only in that first role for like nine or ten months, so there's the T on that, and I found that job on. Indeed, if you want to look for clients, if you want to start your business word of mouth is huge. I encourage you to get off the internet because on the internet I find a lot of other people who want to do what you do, which is great, and it can be great for the community. That'S what this whole blog is all about, but it isn't necessarily the greatest place to find clients all the time so go where your clients are.

If they're going to conferences, if they're going to small business events in your city, your town, they're, going to events whatever it is print off some business cards, you can do it real cheap, real, easy on canvas and go to those events. Introduce yourself to share your portfolio with them start talking again. Linkedin is a great place to find people. You can also look on sites like indeed, and even LinkedIn.

You can use their search tools and search for contracts, temp, part-time jobs and a lot of times. Those will either turn into freelance gigs or you can talk to them and say: hey, I'm looking for a freelance opportunity. Can we do that? Instead, I know that a lot of people have loved hate relationships with freelance job boards as well, but I have had a lot of success on sites like up work up.

Work is actually where I got my first ever freelance client like I said that. Writing client that I was kind of doing as a side hustle. I found that an up work. So again, you might not find like your entire income on up work. Who knows maybe well, but for me it was supplementary and it was something to get my foot in the door and to get some portfolio work on the table so that I could eventually get a day job and higher ticket clients.

So that's it. Those are the five key steps to becoming a social media manager. Again, you can download my guide. It'S Bentley's, slash, SMM, starter kit and I'm going to have a ton, a ton of resources linked down in the description box to be sure to open that up by clicking, see more scrolling down and viewing some of the resources that I mentioned next week or next Episode, I'm going to be talking about the differences between freelance and full-time social media management, so I want to talk about what I liked about each.

What I don't like about each salary, you know how much I got paid at each thing like that. So definitely stay tuned for that, if you want to see that be sure to subscribe, hit the notification bells. So you know when I upload next and go ahead and leave a like on this article. If it's helpful for you to comment down below, and I will talk to you very soon, thanks for reading bye,

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